Differences Between iPad App Development And iPhone App Development

The global tablet market is on an incredible rise. An IDC's press release "Worldwide Tablet Market Surges Ahead on Strong First Quarter Sales, Says IDC" suggests that tablet shipments over the world are surging, growing 142.4% year over year in the first quarter of 2013. The complete study of the statistics in this press release suggests that users are really adopting tablets.

Users have limitless options when it comes to buy a tablet. Major vendors include Apple, Samsung, Asus, Amazon, and Microsoft. These companies are selling tablets in every range, from low-end to high-end. Even Apple has launched its low-end tablet dubbed as iPad Mini. Does it figure out people are more attracted towards tablets than desktops or laptops? Yes, it does. Whether it is for business use, or personal use, tablets are gradually taking over desktops & laptops. A Mashable's article "Forrester: Tablet Sales Will Eclipse Laptop Sales by 2015 [STATS]" estimates that tablet sales will reach to 208 million units by 2014. The article refers lots of other data and suggests there would soon be a tablet-only era.

The rising popularity and increasing sales signal one thing very clearly: Businesses and organizations also need to start taking these devices more seriously. They need to optimize tablet apps in a better way, because these apps show-up in big and different sizes of screens. They need to do this, especially if they have iPhone apps, which have not been treated for iPad device. They also need to do this because Apple's iPad is the only device that holds 39.6% market share, according to same press release of IDC.

Application inventors or investors need to rectify many areas where their iPhone applications have not been optimized for iPad devices. For example, iPad User Interface Guidelines are quite different from iPhone User Interface Guidelines. To solve this issue, developers need to write additional code. Without a separate code, they will not succeed in building a universal iOS app. There are numerous other issues.

The major issue is the difference between screens of iPad and iPhone. The tablet has a screen of 9.5" x 7.3", which offers more than enough space for all your apps. But, the more is the screen space, the more efficiency can be supposed to be available for users. However, most of the iPhone apps can run on iPad too, but all of them cannot be expected to have similar quality, resolution and performance. When you simply offer your iPhone apps for iPad devices, they are just stretched to fill screen, which also look ugly and unprofessional.

iPad developers need to utilize additional space in a productivity way. First, this additional space offers you the chance to build a bigger app. Second, it allows you to add all those features to an app, which you cannot often add to an iPhone app. You can add separate panes for content and navigation. Because you have additional screen space, an app can be split into several sections to offer users more control.

The second thing is that you cannot always choose the tablet platform for every sort of application. But, there are many tasks for which smartphones cannot also be a suitable device. The top tasks, which can more conveniently be executed through tablet apps, include displaying catalogs, retail products and books. These apps are also suitable for field-executives who often need to update their status while they are on-the-go. Game apps are also perfect candidates for tablet devices.

More and more people are choosing iPad for their businesses. It is a perfect fit for their business-operations. iPad based business apps provide a solid foundation for business and amazingly immersive experience to users. With better customization, these apps can almost remove the need of desktop or laptop PCs

Last but not least, every top companies falling in the list of Fortune 500 is using iPad apps. 92% of them are either testing or deploying apps for the iPad platform. An article of The Next Web with the title "92% of the Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPad Apps" covers the full story. These companies or organizations take iPad apps as part of their business strategy. So, with the increasing size of tablet market, tablet based iOS applications are now a crucial part of all organization.

Is your business also calling for an iPad application development? You need to assess it yourself.